Quoteworthy
The main purpose is for the learner to be given the tools to prepare for a more interactive and engaging in-class experience that pushes their level of understanding. With deeper understanding of content, the hope is that their future patients will be better cared for.
Kathleen Timme

Most Recent
Don’t Let Metrics Undermine Your Purpose

Utah’s Chief Medical Quality Officer Bob Pendleton describes a strategic challenge faced by many industries, including health care. We are at risk for prioritizing achievement of metrics over our purpose. He challenges us to think beyond metrics to what patients actually need from us: patient-centered, outcome-focused, affordable care.

Time For Change: How Reexamining Practice Improved Length of Stay in Labor and Delivery

Improvement isn’t just for one area of academic medicine. The right improvement can mean improved patient and trainee experience, reduced cost and a more engaged staff. Nurse Manager Bernice Tenort, physician Brett Einerson, and an interdisciplinary team ended up solving many challenges by tackling a long-standing problem: wait time in labor and delivery.

Team, Process, and Purpose: Best of the Posters 2019

Chief Medical Quality Officer Bob Pendleton kicks off our week-long celebration of improvement and community during University of Utah Health Value Week.

Value Week 2019: Daily Updates

Value Week is a unique collaborative event that brings together U of U Health’s improvement community to recognize the important and impactful work conducted throughout our organization.

How a Hospitalist Duo and a 1000-person Multidisciplinary Team Changed Practice

Changing practice is personal. It doesn’t happen through edict or mandate. Changing practice requires ongoing respectful dialogue. It requires clear vision, data-driven analysis and the support of a dedicated team. Changing practice takes longer that you think it will. In this example, we recognize the power of a partnership in this challenging and important work.

The Seven Wastes in Health Care

Senior Value Engineer Luca Boi applies the Lean concept of waste to health care and explains how learning to see the “Seven Wastes” can help focus your efforts.

How the Cardiovascular Center is Implementing Patient Reported Outcomes

mEVAL is the system U of U Health uses to collect patient-reported outcomes (PROs). Of course, it’s what we do with the data that matters. mEVAL analytics team lead Josh Biber and cardiologist Josef Stehlik share how measuring PROs in the Cardiovascular Center is changing the ways clinicians treat and care for patients.

How Sue Childress Creates a Culture of Innovation

As the director of nursing at Huntsman Cancer Hospital, Sue Childress shares her passion for improvement with a team of hundreds of nurses and HCAs. Learn how a cape and hat inspired Childress’ nursing career, and a passion for cultivating innovation.

Leading Change: Ask, Listen, Learn and Engage

In 2011, Utah’s Intermediate Care Unit (IMCU) decided to improve patient safety through a new approach: engage the entire team in identifying and implementing the improvement. Clinical Operations Director Trell Inzunza shares the 4-step process that engaged the entire team to improve.

How Utah Cardiology Improved Value By Reducing Drug Costs

Scope is a powerful tool when changing practice. Rather than trying to revamp in one large swoop, scoping an improvement down to palatable stages can overcome resistance and lead to meaningful results for future improvement cycles. Although new improvers may feel this approach delays impact, repeated improvement cycles often lead to sustained care transformation. Dr. Theophilus Owan demonstrated this principle in his quest to improve value by standardizing anti-thrombotic medications given to patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI).

Better for Patients = Better for Providers

When health care is designed around patient needs, it doesn't just benefit the patient — it can also help providers find fulfillment in their work. But what does that look like in practice? Physician Joy English opened the Orthopaedic Injury Clinic, an innovative service that delivers better value to patients. Her success is a case study in how to achieve both provider and patient happiness.

Systems Approach to Error

Medical errors often occur due to system failure, not human failure. Hospitalist Kencee Graves helps explain why we need to evaluate medical error from a system standpoint.